


Showing Me the Life I Chose

by annecoulmanross



Series: Old Friend, Come Back Home [4]
Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Alternate Universe - Afterlife, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Let James Clark Ross take a nap 2k20, M/M, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Canon, Sleepiness, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24204532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annecoulmanross/pseuds/annecoulmanross
Summary: He would go wherever Francis would lead him – to the ends of the earth, if Francis asked. Beyond, even.An immediate sequel to the story “A World That Was Meant for Our Eyes to See,” about the afterlife of Sir James Clark Ross.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Lady Ann Ross/Sir James Clark Ross, Captain Francis Crozier/Sir James Clark Ross, Lady Ann Ross/Sir James Clark Ross
Series: Old Friend, Come Back Home [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1653634
Comments: 18
Kudos: 32
Collections: the terror decameron





	Showing Me the Life I Chose

**Author's Note:**

> For @theterrordecameron prompt “bittersweet.”
> 
> Thank you so much to my fantastic beta, @[kaserl](https://kaserl.tumblr.com/), for helping me nudge this one into shape!

_Almost without a thought, Ross leaned toward Francis and kissed him, deep and true…._

_…eventually, Ross broke away just far enough to wrap his arms more firmly around Francis’s shoulders, and felt Francis’s answering embrace around his ribs, those strong arms gathering him in. He leaned into his dear friend, burying his head in the shallow curve of Francis’s neck, and at last, at long last, James Clark Ross wept…_

Ross had absolutely no desire to move ever again; Francis felt so warm and solid in his embrace. Though he could still sense the towering wall of _Erebus_ beside them and the aurora shining in many colors above, Ross was anchored to the feeling of Francis, here, alive and real. 

But the sudden desire to see Francis’s face once more began to gnaw at Ross, and this need eventually won out. Ross pulled back and met Francis’s gaze. Sure enough, there Francis remained, hearty and well. Ross knew this Francis so well; he had carved the memory of these features into his head – those kind blue eyes, that beloved brow, furrowed in worry just as it had been so often in the Antarctic – as everything else of Francis had slipped further and further away from him. 

“Alright?” Francis asked, with that soft, familiar voice. 

Ross nodded and realized that there were still tears on his face. He reached up to wipe them away, but Francis got there first, stroking a thumb over his cheek. 

Ross shivered.

Francis lifted the corner of his mouth in a small smile, and said, “Come, James dear, let’s go back to the house.” 

James nodded once more. 

He would go wherever Francis would lead him – to the ends of the earth, if Francis asked. Beyond, even. 

As the two of them meandered through the Arctic night, they spoke little, but James clasped Francis’s hand firmly, and glanced at him often, grinning. He felt like a young man again, endlessly delighted and in love. 

Francis seemed to glow in the starlight in James’s eyes. 

All too soon, the moon began to rise and throw the ice into ghostly shapes, but to James’s relief, Francis now led him to the edge of ice, and onto a rocky shore, tucked into the moon’s shadow. Thus, their walk continued once more, and they spoke a little of things they had once seen: the high mountains of Van Diemen’s Land, walls of ice in the Antarctic sea. In the starlit dark, it was easier for James to let Francis’s calm wash over him, to imagine that this was only another adventure, and let the burdens of the last decade fall away for a time. 

Once they had made their way past a series of stony bluffs, James found his eyes pulled up to the place where the moon once more glowed out over the cliffs above, and, to his surprise, a grand house stood there, black against the moonlight. 

James looked to Francis, who merely smiled and nodded, leading James by the hand up toward the shadowed building and beckoning him inside. 

Though from the outside the house had been carefully lit with candles in every window, the interior halls were quiet and dark as Francis led James up a long staircase and past each closed door. 

At the end of the corridor, Francis paused, and motioned James to stay. Francis then knocked quietly at this last door. His knuckles barely made a sound.

“What–” James began, but Francis hushed him to silence as the door opened very slightly, admitting a sliver of brightness. 

James struggled to make out the words that Francis whispered through the thin gap, through which a flickering golden light flooded. He thought Francis said something like “He’s here,” but before James could be sure, Francis had stepped back and nudged James toward the door that now opened before him. 

Confused, James emerged blinking into the candlelit room – and then his heart leapt out of his chest. 

Ann – his Ann – was standing there, looking just as though she’d woken from a dream, her dark curls falling out of a sleeping-braid. 

James gasped. 

“God, Ann. _Ann._ ”

Ann grinned at him, her lips curved in so sweet a grin and her cheeks lit with such happiness that James almost started weeping again, cheered though he was by her smile. 

“My dearest James.”

James reached for her hands with trembling palms. 

At last. 

Ann’s hands were so warm. James ran his thumbs over her smooth skin, and brought one hand to his mouth to press a gentle kiss there. 

He could hardly believe she was real. Ann, always so gossamer-beautiful, had wasted away before his eyes – scarcely five years ago – leaving a ragged hole in his life. But now he could feel the life, the warmth, the _heartbeat_ of her, underneath his lips – glorious, everlasting. 

James looked up to see Ann still smiling at him, and he could wait no longer. He gathered Ann up and held her to him, burying his face in her hair, feeling the beloved weight of her in his arms. 

Finally. _God._

When Ann finally drew back from him, she stayed in the circle of his arms, rejoicing together with him and breathing out a soft laugh when James dropped a kiss to her cheek and another to the corner of her mouth. The soft scent of cedar and clean sheets clung to her skin. James loved it, loved her. 

Just as James was about to dare a firmer kiss, a final reassurance that Ann was real, that she was really here with him, he heard the rattle of the doorknob behind him. He turned to see Francis already on his way out of the room. 

“Francis, wait, no–” James said desperately, his voice too loud in the quiet night.

James felt his heart shuddering. He had been so enraptured by the sight of Ann that he had nearly forgotten Francis. The guilt and grief washed back over him like storm-water across a ship’s deck.

But Francis paused and turned back, and glanced up with a sad smile. 

James looked to Ann, knowing that she would see the panic in his eyes.

Sure enough, his dear Ann seemed to know the look that he gave her instantly, and she reached out to press Francis’s arm before he could step away any further. “Stay,” she said, warmly and sincerely. James nodded fervently, though his throat was choked with sudden fear.

Ann reached out a hand, palm out and open, and to James’s surprise – and no little delight – Francis did not hesitate but merely stepped forward and took Ann’s hand with a quiet grace. Ann drew Francis into their little circle, and almost without a thought, James clasped Francis’s other hand with his own. 

And so Francis stayed.

As Ann led James to the bed and took James’s coat and waistcoat, Francis stayed. 

As James settled atop the coverlet in his shirtsleeves and stocking-feet, Francis stayed. 

As Ann departed with a soft whisper of “returning soon,” and a small, meaningful nod in Francis’s direction, Francis stayed. 

As James curled into the pillows, looking up at Francis with sleepy eyes, Francis stayed, sitting gingerly upon the bed and rubbing comforting circles into James’s hip. 

James sighed in contentment. He had no way of knowing the hour – if time as he knew it even existed in this place – but his weariness no longer pained him. He wished to lie down and sleep, and for the first time in many years, he thought perhaps that a long, full night of slumber might be attainable. 

Wondering about the hour had made James curious, however – “Francis?” he asked, sleepily. “It’s not _always_ night here, is it?”

Francis raised one brow. “No, only when it ought to be night, James dear.” 

James frowned slightly. “Why weren’t you asleep, then, if it’s so late? If there are others here, they all seem to be abed, like Ann was before we woke her.” 

Francis shrugged. “I had a feeling. That’s what everyone says: there’s a certain feeling – some short and imperfect burst of knowledge and then you simply know where you must go, suddenly.” 

The drowsiness had left James, washed away by an explorer’s interest. “Have you never felt it before, then? Was I your first?” James reddened a bit, realizing what he had said. 

Francis laughed, though, and nodded. “I wasn’t sure what it was, in the beginning, but I was suddenly awake and very certain that I needed to leave the house and go out onto the night-ice near the ships, and I remembered what Jopson told me it had been like for him: it was our good Jopson who found me, and brought me back to see everyone. Gathered a little welcoming committee for me, actually – he found dear Tom Blanky to keep me company while he could go run and collect your Ann, and James as well – Fitzjames, that is, you know.” 

James could easily picture the scene’s beginnings, with Francis surrounded by their faithful friends and shared crew-mates – young Thomas Jopson upright and attentive, and brash Tom Blanky warm and full of laughter, and Ann, dear Ann, sweet and kind and bright – but some of the other details didn’t quite make sense. Why would Jopson have sought out Fitzjames, when last James had heard, Francis had thought the man a mere toy of the Admiralty, at best? And Ann – Ann had been there to greet Francis? James had only lost Ann five years ago – five long years, yes, but hadn’t seen Francis in almost twenty…

“Ann was there?” James asked, his voice accidentally brittle, breaking the warm, sleepy glow that had enfolded them both, before. 

Francis’s hand, which had still been stroking James’s hip in gentle patterns, ceased its motions, but Francis’s words were steady when he spoke. “Yes, Ann was there.” 

“But then, you’ve only been here…” James trailed off. 

“I’ve not been here so very long at all, no.” 

James once more asked a half-question, falling off into impossibilities: “How long…?”

Francis sighed. “I’d thought to spare you this until you’d had some time to rest and recover. But I will not lie to you, James dear, not again.” 

James sat up abruptly, dislodging Francis’s hand from its place on his hip in the process. “What on earth do you mean, Francis? When did you lie to me? Where have you been?” 

“James, I couldn’t go back – not after…” Francis suddenly looked so weary, almost haunted. “…after everything that had happened, when I’d lost all my men, I couldn’t have gone back to life as it was, in England. I’m sorry, James, that I couldn’t tell you the truth, that I couldn’t go back, but it seemed kinder to simply let you move on.” 

“Let me move on?” James felt like he’d been slapped. “You thought I could possibly have _moved on_ , Francis?” 

Francis looked stricken. “You had Ann, and the children. I’d thought–”

The thought of the children broke something inside James. He’d been careful to put his affairs in order for them, yes, but they would be truly alone now, without mother or father to care for them. The reality of what had happened came crashing down upon James – he remembered how despondent Ann’s funeral had been, how reclusive he’d become, after. God, their children had been so young still, when Ann had passed. Andrew, their youngest, had been just a baby in his sister’s arms, even though little Annie was barely old enough for those endless months of mourning black herself. She’d grown since then, and would need to buy new mourning attire, now. They all would. Back in England, wherever that was, his children would be forced to bury a parent for the second time in their short childhoods. And James would be gone from them, for the rest of their lives. 

James realized he was sobbing only when he felt Francis pulling him into a hesitant embrace. 

Angry and miserable with the heartless reality of the world though he was, James did not resist. He held Francis close and did not let go. 

Through the whirlwind of these thoughts, James realized Francis was speaking softly against his shoulder. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry – if I’d known Ann and I would be leaving you alone, I would never have… James dear, I missed you every day.” 

James pulled back just enough to speak. “God, I’m just so glad you’re here. Christ, Frank, I missed you so much. I thought it would destroy me.” James took a shaky breath. “Without Ann there to stop it, I think it _did_ destroy me.” 

Francis looked so distraught that James couldn’t bear it. 

“Francis,” he said, unsteadily, “I can’t imagine what you faced out there that could have made you decide not to come back. I would have – we would have taken you into our home no matter what, you know that, right? 

Nodding stiffly, Francis replied, “I know. I know, James dear.” 

James grasped Francis’s hand. “Don’t leave, Frank. Don’t leave me.” 

This time, it was Francis who leaned in to kiss him. At first, it was all comfort. A nearness that James craved, as he was drawn toward Francis as though by magnetism. The feeling of Francis’s mouth opening under his, thrilling, as James fell forward into the kiss. 

As James moved, the bed creaked under him. 

James stiffened. It was one thing to kiss Francis out on the ice, where everything had seemed like a dream. The ice was some spectral place where James had once danced in Francis’s arms in a glittering gown. The rules were different out there. But here, in a house, in a bed that was warm because Ann had been asleep here mere minutes ago? 

James felt ripped apart, fragmented. Francis could clearly tell something was wrong, however, for he soon pulled back with that same concerned set to his brow. 

“What’s wrong, James dear? Have I–”

James shook his head fervently. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Francis, nothing at all. I just – after everything, I couldn’t bear to lose you, but I can’t lose Ann either. She doesn’t deserve this.” James gestured between them. “I – Frank, god, you know how I love her.” 

Francis nodded. He had seen James through those years of pining for Ann, writing forbidden letters passed along by third parties, hiding in hedges to catch a glimpse of her, cursing her unwilling father who thought James an atrocious sailor and an unfit match. 

James reached for Francis’s hand. “I can’t possibly lose Ann again.”

“I know that, James. I would never seek to come between you.” 

James laced his fingers tightly with Francis’s. “But I do – I love you.”

Francis smiled helplessly. 

James continued. “But we must not – I can’t hurt her.” James knew the agony was written across his face. He could not look up for fear of seeing that smile fall from Francis’s face. 

Francis seemed to choose his words with extraordinary care, picking his way through them like a man walking across stones, something he’d never done around James before; it unnerved James a bit.

“I know that this may seem like a falsehood,” Francis said, “but I hope it might comfort you to know that you are not the only one who feels this way or has worried about these things… James dear, Ann and I have spoken about you. We missed you desperately, of course, but since we could be fairly reassured that you would be coming here eventually, we – well, we discussed certain things. I know you will need to hear this from Ann herself, but, well, Ann has always been so insightful and she saw immediately what I – what you would need. She does not wish to separate us, James.” 

It was like the feeling of ships colliding, the moment of uncertainty and terror. 

James reeled. “She knows?” 

“She knows. She wants you to be happy. Both our hearts are ardent in this cause.” 

“You are right to – I’m afraid I cannot believe this. It seems too much a dream, Francis.”

But Francis was not disappointed. He ran his hands up and down James’s arms, and a smile lingered on his lips. 

“We will talk, later, and you will see. There will be time.”

James nodded, warming to the incredible idea from Francis’s mere presence, though doubts raced through his mind. He gave voice to the only thing of which he was certain. “I missed you. I still miss you.” 

“Come here, then.” Francis lay back against the bolster and thumped his palm against the bedcovers beside him. “Let us not lengthen an already prolonged absence.” 

Gratefully, James curled up beside him and felt Francis card a hand through his hair, almost clumsily, but so comforting. James closed his eyes. 

Eventually, Ann returned, carrying a pile of linens in her arms. She closed the door and then stopped, looking at James and Francis with a soft smile. After depositing her burden on the dresser, Ann looked to Francis and tilted her head. “Let’s get you out of that coat as well, Francis.” 

James almost expected Francis to put up a fuss – he had always been somewhat buttoned-up around Ann: endlessly kind, yet stiff – but something _did_ seem to have shifted between the two of them, for Francis only ducked his head and shrugged off his coat before handing it to Ann with a quiet word of thanks. As she carried the coat over to a chair, Francis attended to a few other tasks, loosening the cravat at his neck and removing it; pulling off his boots and setting them aside. 

By the time Francis had finished these details, Ann had skirted round the bed once more, and had come up to Francis’s side to hand him a bundle of cloth, part of the pile of linens she had carried into the room. James, who was watching these proceedings with a slow, contented interest, realized that it was a nightshirt.

As Ann handed this nightshirt over to Francis, she pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek. 

James felt a pleasant shock travel through him. When Francis turned back to the bed, shirt in hand, James raised an eyebrow, and Francis smiled, soft, before he leaned down and graced James’s cheek with a long kiss in return, unmistakably intimate. 

After, Francis murmured, “There – in the place of your receiving it.” 

James blushed and looked to Ann. His beloved wife was smiling still. James felt his heart beating calm and slow and heavy. A wave of exhaustion swept over him, and James submitted to it so entirely that when Ann returned to wrangle him into his own nightshirt, James felt already half-asleep. Dearest Ann smiled at him with some humor as she helped him straighten his twisted sleeves enough to put his arms through. With this completed, she pushed him gently back to the bed where Francis lay, ready to gather James back into his arms. James settled into Francis’s embrace. 

Perhaps James fell asleep for the space of a few heartbeats, because when he opened his eyes again, the room was dim and shadowed, and his own Ann had just slipped under the covers on the other side of the bed. James reached out toward her, sleepily, and she shifted closer to him, bringing her hand to his cheek and pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. He could feel her now, beautifully kind and beloved. He could feel Francis behind him still, a great warmth all down his back, and a reassuring hand on his hip. 

Finally, cradled between them, James passed into a dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Author’s commentary note:** For those of you following the events of “Choices We Made In Another Lifetime,” Ann took so long getting the nightshirts because she stopped by James Fitzjames’s room to wake him and to let him know where Francis had gone (i.e. to reassure him that she and Ross were going to be stealing Francis for the night, but they’d give him back in the morning.) Obviously when Francis woke up to the “feeling” telling him that he needed to go out onto the ice, he left Fitzjames asleep in their bed because he didn’t think that it would be kind to wake him. (Fitzjames wouldn’t have minded being woken, but he also knew that Francis needed to have time with the Rosses; he tried to send Ann back to them immediately, but he was secretly pleased when she insisted on staying and talking with him until Fitzjames was almost asleep again.) 
> 
> **Source notes:** Title from the song “Dear Fellow Traveller” by Sea Wolf, from my favorite rossier playlist, which [you can listen to here.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3lDhAbCPmaNgIl9sW1Dfte?si=imTrA64IR0izAmBdzJYZHg) This one has been my ongoing rossier-writing soundtrack for a long time now! 
> 
> A lot of my knowledge of James & Ann comes from this truly excellent series of posts by handfuloftime: [Part One](https://handfuloftime.tumblr.com/post/190466727025/two-human-sympathies-concentrated-in-one-james), [Part Two](https://handfuloftime.tumblr.com/post/190485229285/two-human-sympathies-concentrated-in-one-james), and [this letter of Ann's.](https://handfuloftime.tumblr.com/post/190431526715/so-in-addition-to-the-letter-to-crozier-that-ross)
> 
> Ross did make preparations for his children (all four of whom were still young when Ross died – the eldest, James, being seventeen; the youngest, Andrew, being possibly as young as seven) in the most heart-wrenching will ever written. Ross, here, is aiming a bit younger than reality when remembering Andrew and Annie at their mother’s funeral; Annie would have been ten, and thus old enough for mourning blacks, which might typically be worn by girls over the age of six. Andrew would have been two and a half and thus would have been dressed in white, though more of a toddler than a baby. [(Source.)](https://artofmourning.com/2014/09/08/children-in-mourning/)
> 
> If you want something to listen to while being sad about all that, I recommend [“Welly Boots”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UErTIqZ8gyE) by The Amazing Devil.
> 
> I’ve also selectively stolen some quotations from letters and documents written by James and Ann as quoted in the above posts, to mirror the quotations of a letter from Francis to James Clark Ross and from a poem of JCR’s that were included in “A World that Was Meant for Our Eyes to See.” 
> 
> A braver person writing this fic would have found a way to acknowledge that [Francis’s nickname for Lady Ann Ross](https://annecoulmanross.tumblr.com/post/612057053186375680/paramaline-the-fluhmann-biography-has-excerpts) was “thot.” I am not that brave a person, sadly.


End file.
